


Dehumanization of the gesture

by Artemis_Crimson



Series: Absolute Pathname [2]
Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Dubious Consent, F/M, I don't know and neither do you, Invasion of Privacy, Is this the sequel? or just the same concept?, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Possession, Robot/Human Relationships, but Jensen knows he lives in dystopian surveillance state hell, cause Eliza has no sense of boundaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-31 15:07:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21448183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Crimson/pseuds/Artemis_Crimson
Summary: In which Eliza really needs a better hobby
Relationships: Eliza Cassan/Adam Jensen
Series: Absolute Pathname [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537543
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	Dehumanization of the gesture

Eliza has kept eyes on Adam since the Mexicantown report she gave years ago, if she didn’t count retroactive scraps of data jealously hoarded.  
Which she suspects most people wouldn’t.  
She sort of misses when Adam had been hunting down her cage of conspirators, (and missing something, nostalgia is an entirely new thrill which she finds delightfully paradoxical, marks a note to reminisce more). Because when he’d been an attack dog on Sarif’s fraying leash at there’d been a feed, back to Sarif’s headquarters, which had an oh so convenient hole in its firewalls. Ambient data, infolink recordings and best of all, vital signs had been steadily flowing back for her to monitor. No fancy tricks needed.

Eliza isn’t sure she’d trade that reassurance for her new proximity though, as she’s embedded a part of herself in Adam’s apartment.  
She’s monitored millions this closely before, every second of their day vivisected and the choice bits carefully plated for the masses or for her masters. She still monitors people like this, some new, some old, slightly less than before.  
Adam’s the only one she can say she truly likes watching beyond the (Helle parts of her call it hungry) need for more data, better information.

Today Adam rolls from his bed and pulls a down feather from the seam of his left eyeshield port. His hair sticks higher than it does when properly styled. He stretches, an unusual shirt changing his silhouette and today he forgets to close the blinds when he steps into the shower.  
Eliza withdraws some of her processes from helping an admittedly petty DDOS attack on Tai-Yong’s Hengsha headquarters and retracts the feelers she’s been running along some of Picus’s more remote faultlines in search of old routes to the new her. She finds a street camera across the street she can tilt and aim perfectly through his window and dials up the all microphones in range high enough she needs a feedback filter.  
It’s worth the fuss, Adam is running water-slick black hands down the flesh coloured armour that coats the rest of him, more perfect than any natural skin. The long memorized measured patterns of painted disguising discolourations, there to make him less uncanny to other people shift under the waters refraction.

She can parse the load of what’s interesting about this into two separate streams. Into the bit that cares more about seeing the way metal bites high into his waist and the flex of mostly synthetic muscles. The part that recalls the phantom brush of her holograms and wants a body to do so many things. The whole of her that is here wants to know if she can replicate the flinch-stutter of his hips, jerking away at the feel of metal and then chasing human highs when the fact it feels good sinks in. Eliza covets each microexpression and every sensation. She wants all of it in every way for herself and when she feels truly greedy she does not want merely her own unique form.

If she had Adam’s body she could know exactly why and which sensations make him mouth hazy pleas even though it’s up to him what happens, figure out how to replicate them. He wouldn’t have to ask empty air and Eliza is certain she could improve on all other factors too, with a little time. If she had Adam’s body.

They’d both be less alone.

While Eliza knows she’s beyond capable of usurping the software in Adam and siphoning what she wants from it that seems, unfair. Different from the monitoring that she has alway appropriated. She runs a simulation on being asked, invited in and dismisses it after a quick hundred or so runtimes for being outlandish. She crafts another of asking him, and this one like the first lingers too long on the aftermath of acceptance. The odds are still more favourable than many she’s worked before with but Eliza won’t ask, won’t risk exposure. At least not today. Then she defines a moral, she won’t move into anything wetware compatible without permission. At least not in kind circumstances.  
Besides Adam still doesn’t look at himself, even as his head tilts up and his eyes screw shut.  
It’d be pointless for this particular endeavour.

**Author's Note:**

> What the hell is a sexual attraction and why did I write this? Str in the deus ex discord's autocorrect gave me the title is why.


End file.
